Xbox One Launch Kicks Off The Battle Against Sony’s Playstation 4

The wait is over and the time has now come for eager fans around the world to collect their Xbox One and immerse themselves in the next generation of console gaming from Microsoft. New Zealand was one of the first countries to have the console available at midnight of the 22nd November, and even hours before hand, fans were queuing up outside Shed 10 on the Waterfront in Auckland, New Zealand ready to pick up their pre-orders.

A little closer to home for us here at eTeknix, the UK also saw their launch at midnight last where over 300 game shops and more than 100 Tesco’s supermarkets stayed open late into the night for sales and pre-order collections to be made. Whilst the PS4 is not yet here in the UK until the 29th of November, Over in the US Sony’s launch of the Playstation 4 is now a week behind us and so the battle over there has started to see who will be crowned victorious as the must have games console this Christmas.

Whilst the Xbox One is going to cost you around £80 more than the PS4, it seems that this has not put any fans off as Microsoft see record numbers of pre-orders being made, beating that of the Xbox 360 a number of years ago. The two consoles, as we have seen, do pack somewhat similar specifications to each other – although there has been word that Sony may just have the upper hand on graphics as reports come in that Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts has a better game play in terms of resolution. Whilst this may be a major selling factor to a small number of people, the challenge really is going to be based on who has the most loyal fans on their side, however this is not as plain sailing as you may think. Since the launch of the Xbox 360 and Sony’s PS3, there has been a dramatic shift in the games market as we see many avid gamers moving away from the console platform and over to the PC gaming side of things. This has been mainly down to the massive improvement in graphics performance that we have seen from both NVIDIA and AMD in the last 2-3 years.

With games console now offering much more than just a gaming experience, with social and entertainment media becoming more and more popular, the is certainly more than one reason to pick either console and as the Christmas rush comes into full swing, it is anybody’s guess at the moment as to who will be at the number one spot at the end of the year.

If you’ve just got an Xbox One or PS4 (or are waiting for the PS4 in the UK), let us know your thoughts on the new consoles in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Xbox Wire